Rev. JohnBosco Ikemeh

Vice President & Chair

Life is a journey. My own journey started in Port Harcourt, Nigeria where I was born to a family of ten children. There is no free public education in Nigeria and in most African countries. My parents could not afford to pay tuition for all their ten children. I was encouraged, a middle child, to learn a trade. Then God sent a parish priest, Rev Kevin Ikpah to help me achieve my dream of attending school. I later joined the Dominican Order of the province of St Joseph the Worker, Nigeria and Ghana. I professed my vows as a religious in August 1986 and was raised to the Presbyteral Order of the Catholic priesthood in December 1996. Graduated from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria with an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and a graduate degree in Clinical Psychology. I further obtained a graduate degree in Systematic Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, California. I was later conferred a Doctor of Sacred Theology (Systematic Theology) at the same Jesuit School.

In ministry I have served in different capacities in the church. I am presently working as a chaplain at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Charleston. My services were rendered to our men and women in uniform as the Catholic priest at Joint Base Charleston from 2005 to 2011. As a student at Berkeley I served at St Theresa Church in Oakland, California as a resident priest. I also served as a parochial vicar at Assumption of the BVM Church in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and chaplain at Lebanon Catholic School. I was also a parochial vicar at St Patrick’s in York, Pennsylvania from 1997 to 2000.

Life took me to Abakaliki where I discovered the gross poverty that is endemic in Ebonyi State. In the town of Abakaliki, many school age children are still found “hawking” on the streets. Few, if any, of those children can hope to attend school unless new opportunities are created for them. This led me to founding African Education Outreach (AEO) a public nonprofit organization that seeks to create and maintain a quality, welcoming educational K-12 campus in Nigeria with curricula relevant to the goals and aspirations of each student irrespective of faith, creed, tribe, ethnicity, or social status.